Fun dribbling soccer game for 5 to 8 year olds

Use this fun soccer game with your 5 to 8 year old players to get them working on dribbling and ball control skills. It can also double up as a training game for indoor play.

Soccer (football) drill set up

Set up an area: 30x30 yard square.

You need 12 players.

You'll need 10 footballs for this soccer drill.

Soccer (football) drill set up

Inside the area 10 players have a ball while the two remaining players are the evil ghosts.

The players must use their dribbling skills to move their ball around the area – they can move in any direction as long as they stay within the area – trying to stay away from the ghosts.

The ghosts attempt to tag the dribbling players.

Once a player has been tagged, they freeze and stand with their feet apart holding their ball above their head.

See how many players the ghosts can freeze in one minute.

The quickest time to tag all players, or the most tagged when the time runs out, wins.

After each game nominate two new ghosts and restart with all players back in the game.

Skills objectives of soccer drill

The soccer skills developed in this drill are dribbling, close control of the ball, turning away from defenders.

What to call out in the soccer drill

“Head up!”

“Accelerate!”

“Freeze if you’ve been tagged!”

Advance the drill skills

Allow free players to unfreeze tagged players using a nutmeg move – playing the ball between their legs – which means the ghosts have to work harder to tag everyone. In order to be unfrozen, players must shout out “I need a ghostbuster”. A good coaching tip to make the drill skills even harder is to get players to crawl through a frozen player's legs after they have played the nutmeg move.

Key soccer coaching tip

Times and results should be told to players as you go, as an incentive to be the quickest, most evil ghosts.